Independence Days – Week 20

Not much to add this week.  We had a fun weekend, but not a lot of it was spent with food.  We went to a new friend’s home for dinner on Friday night (we met through the Urban Homesteader meetup group).  They are actually neighbors, and we had a wonderful time talking natural parenting, homebirth, food, gardens.

They are restoring their 1925 home to orignal condition as much as possible.  It was so cool to see what they’ve done and to imagine what the home was like back when it was owned by a Madam!  How cool that they know the history and are working to preserve it! We swapped recipes and pediatrician names.  I’m happy to have neighbors who are as crazy as us!

We also went to the botanic gardens (on Saturday) to see the Jurassic Gardens exhibit.  H liked seeing the dinosaurs and the weather was just perfect.

We wrapped up the weekend on Sunday with the cheesemaking class, and that was really fun.  I made another batch of addicting and horribly bad for you chocolate chip cookies, and we roasted the last pie pumpkins we had.  (Only have big ones left now).  Besides a few tomatoes, we mostly stayed out of the garden this week… (unusual for us lately).

Here’s the rundown on what we did do:

Plant Something –  none

Harvest Something–  tomatoes, zucchini, eggs, pie pumpkins at the farm

Preserve Something –  Froze tomatoes, made pumpkin butter, froze pumpkin puree, toasted pumpkin seeds…

Waste Not – I took advantage of the extra “damaged” pumpkins that were not good enough to put into shares from the farm.  These would have otherwise gone to waste.   We also saved the whey from the cheesemaking class… some for the chickens, and some for our friends who use it for grains.

Want Not/Prep & Storage – nothing to add this week.

Build Community Food Systems –   I hosted a cheesemaking class in our home on Sunday.  It was cool to learn how easy it can be, plus, I got to meet a few more ‘Urban Homesteaders’ from the meetup group.

Eat the Food – mmm… we opened the dill pickles we made earlier this summer…. YUM!  I’m so glad they turned out well, since we have quite a few quarts of them!

Spiced Pumpkin Seeds:  Rinse seeds and spread on a kitchen towel to dry most of the way.  Mix 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp sugar.  Spread the seeds on a baking sheet, and sprinkle spice mixture over them.  Stir the seeds to make sure they are all covered with the spices.  Place in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  Stir the seeds and roast another 10 minutes.  Check them frequently so they don’t burn.